World Cup Fans Hit in Online Scam

4th Feb 16:44

Online scammers have been promoting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, conning recipients out of their money.

The scammers have been using 419/advance fee scams, and Nick Johnston, senior software engineer for Symatec's MessageLabs intelligence team has said that two scams of this type have already been spotted.

The first scam claims that recipients have won a lottery connected to the 2014 World Cup, hosted in Brazil.

The second scam is based around the 2022 World Cup, and comes with an attached PDF document labelled '2022 email award online documentation 1'.

Upon opening the document, there is a convincing picture of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, with Sheikh Hamed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani, the Qatar football association president.

Also in the document, there is an official tournament logo and a statement claiming that the recipient has just won £1.5 million.

Security experts are warning the general public of the scam, and are urging people to ignore any similar emails upon spotting them.

No doubt scams such as this one shall continue to grow as the tournament draws nearer.

Nick Johnston released this statement regarding the scam, "Like many 419 or advance-fee scams, the message encourages recipients to email the scammer to claim, or to phone a forwarding number, which often routes the call to the scammer abroad,"

"Although these messages, like most 419/advance fee scams, are sent in low volumes, there are many variations, and they are a nuisance."